{"id":2787,"date":"2016-05-20T22:15:15","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T22:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/05\/20\/ben-wheatley-talks-high-rise-the-predictive-fiction-of-j-g-ballard-and-editing-while-scripting\/"},"modified":"2016-05-20T22:15:15","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T22:15:15","slug":"ben-wheatley-talks-high-rise-the-predictive-fiction-of-j-g-ballard-and-editing-while-scripting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/05\/20\/ben-wheatley-talks-high-rise-the-predictive-fiction-of-j-g-ballard-and-editing-while-scripting\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Wheatley Talks \u2018High-Rise,\u2019 the Predictive Fiction of J.G. Ballard, and Editing While Scripting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher Schobert \/ The Film Stage<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s no exaggeration to say that after Ben Wheatley\u2019s<\/strong> exhilarating High-Rise<\/em><\/strong> made its long-awaited debut at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, audiences staggered out of the theater in a daze. While some may have found the experience overwhelming, just as many emerged with a feeling of real exhilaration. Yes, Wheatley\u2019s adaptation of J.G. Ballard\u2019s 1975 novel is that kind of film. This story of life becoming unhinged in an imposing, endlessly fascinating tower block is violent, oozing with sex and littered with chaos. And while clearly not for all tastes, it\u2019s almost impossible not to be impressed with Wheatley\u2019s filmmaking prowess.<\/p>\n

With a starry-cast \u2014 a never-better Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss<\/strong> \u2014 music from Clint Mansell<\/strong> and Portishead<\/strong> (the band contributes a stunning cover of Abba\u2019s \u201cS.O.S.\u201d), High-Rise<\/em> is the latest uncompromising visual and sonic explosion from Wheatley. The English director\u2019s Down Terrace<\/em>, Kill List<\/em>,\u00a0Sightseers<\/em>,<\/strong> and A Field in England<\/em><\/strong>have earned him a dedicated following. He is also known for his television work, including two episodes from the eighth season of Doctor Who<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Like his other big-screen efforts, High-Rise<\/em> was written by and co-edited with his partner, Amy Jump<\/strong>. While promoting the film in Vancouver, Wheatley discussed how he and Jump approached Ballard\u2019s text, why the transition from his earlier features to the world of High-Rise<\/em> was not as massive a leap as it might seem, and also provided an update on his next film, the Boston-set crime drama Free Fire<\/em><\/strong>. Recently picked up by A24, Free Fire <\/em>is executive produced by Martin Scorsese<\/strong> and stars recent Room<\/em> Oscar winner Brie Larson, Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Cillian Murphy<\/strong>, and Jack Reynor<\/strong>. In the meantime, the sensual menace of High-Rise<\/em> is finally coming to theaters this Friday after a VOD release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Film Stage: High-Rise<\/em> has always been categorized as an \u201cunfilmable\u201d book. Did that label have any impact on your approach to the film?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ben Wheatley<\/strong>: It just depends how you define unfilmable. There are books that are structurally and formally difficult; something like\u00a0Naked Lunch<\/em><\/strong> is formally difficult because it jumps all over the place. I don\u2019t think that was ever the issue with High-Rise<\/em>. When you actually look at the book, it has quite a linear storyline to it, and it\u2019s quite strong visually. The difficulty comes in the way the characters act. It doesn\u2019t have a traditional happy ending, and the characters don\u2019t act like traditional Hollywood movie characters do. But I think High-Rise<\/em> has unfairly had this unfilmable tag just because it\u2019s been in development for a long time. It doesn\u2019t necessarily always mean the same thing. With High-Rise<\/em>, it just means there\u2019s not been an appetite for it up until now, not that it\u2019s been impossible to film.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve said part of what you found appealing about Ballard as a young reader was that his work felt dangerous. Was that part of the appeal in bringing High-Rise<\/em> to life \u2014 tackling something that inspired those feelings?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, but when I was a kid and I read High-Rise<\/em>, it was basically predictive fiction. Unfortunately, now it\u2019s kind of come true. We\u2019ve come to meet Ballard\u2019s predictions rather than [see them] become less relevant. They\u2019re actually more relevant over time. And the idea of being kind of Ballard-ian characters trapped in this modern world seems to feel more like documentary than like fantasy.<\/p>\n

Do you think the story\u2019s parallels to the present day were always there? Was that another element of your attraction to adapting High-Rise<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, I think so. That\u2019s just part of what happens when you are engaged in writing predictive fiction \u2014 your story is always [looking] into the future a little bit, so it\u2019s got stronger legs than most novels might have. Ballard\u2019s peers were writing about their experiences of being professors at universities and their love affairs or whatever, but those books date a lot faster than something that\u2019s already looking to the future.<\/p>\n

I think the main attraction for me to Ballard and for readers to Ballard is that he could look at the modern world and dissect it, and he had a very unique vision of what the modern world was. He saw beyond the bubble of reality that we exist in, the thing that makes everything seem to make sense in the modern world. I think maybe his own experiences of being a child \u2014 where he saw the world he was living in completely destroyed and reassembled again \u2014 gave him an insight into the way that the world works. [You don\u2019t have that insight] without having that violent wrench from one reality to another reality. The modern person just feels that what\u2019s happening to them at this moment is something that\u2019s immutable. This is a problem with the western world, that most people don\u2019t even think they\u2019re going to die<\/em>, let alone can see beyond their own immediate moment.<\/p>\n

In terms of mounting the film, what was it like to make the transition from your earlier films to something with the size and scale of High-Rise<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think if you look at the films I\u2019ve made and you go from Sightseers<\/em> to High-Rise<\/em>, it looks like a massive leap. But the reality is that during that time I also made a lot of television and directed lots of adverts. In my films, we never had enough budget to even move the camera \u2014 everything had to be handheld because of budget restraints. I love handheld camera, but this is the first time I\u2019ve had the opportunity to have a large set built and even to have extras, really. I feel like I\u2019ve been working with a full deck of cards for the first time. Not that I mean there is anything wrong with the other films, but they were very specifically designed to be done for the budgets that we had.<\/p>\n

Talk a little about the editing style? There are moments when you jump to different parts of the buildings in the same sequence, and sometimes even mid-sentence. How much of this was pre-planned, and how much was developed in post-production?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amy tends to write the scripts with the editing in, and because she is the editor with me, she knows that she can have that control. Accepted wisdom is that the script should be as vanilla as possible going forward to the director, but because I\u2019m going to direct it and she\u2019s going to edit it with me, we know that anything that\u2019s written in the script at the beginning can be executed at the end, and not in a way that will irritate the people making the movie. There\u2019s this idea that screenwriters should know their place, and not interfere with the work the director does. But because those jobs are so blurred between our different roles, it\u2019s absolutely fine. So quite a lot of the structure of the film was already in place before we started shooting. Obviously, some of the montage stuff was created on the fly as we made the movie. On High-Rise<\/em> and on [upcoming film]Free-Fire<\/em>, and even on A Field in England<\/em>, we edited as we went along. That means I can [identify] shots I need as I\u2019m in production that I can fire off to the second unit to go and get to make those sequences work.<\/p>\n

In order to finance a film as bold and ambitious as High-Rise<\/em>, was it essential to have a cast of established names?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Totally. It\u2019s important in getting any film made, but at a certain budget level, you just don\u2019t financing unless you\u2019re swimming in that pool. And that\u2019s the way it\u2019s always been. But then the other side of it is that people don\u2019t rise up to become those names unless they\u2019re really, really brilliant as well. So it\u2019s absolutely fine.<\/p>\n

Your next film, Free Fire<\/em>, is another large-scale production. Can we expect to see it make the fall festival circuit? And how fun was it to see your star Brie Larson\u2019s success?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s finished, so I think it\u2019s looking at a release in September. We\u2019re really looking forward to unleashing it. [As for Brie Larson], we were filming well before Room<\/em><\/strong> was nominated; none of it had happened really. All that was happening at the time was that Room<\/em> was being talked about as being really good. But it\u2019s been an incredible ride for her. It\u2019s quite something, really.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christopher Schobert \/ The Film Stage It\u2019s no exaggeration to say that after Ben Wheatley\u2019s exhilarating High-Rise made its long-awaited debut at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, audiences staggered out of the theater in a daze. While some may have found the experience overwhelming, just as many emerged with a feeling of real exhilaration. … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBen Wheatley Talks \u2018High-Rise,\u2019 the Predictive Fiction of J.G. 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